The Sampsons were the last
group of "thousand-tonners" to be completed, in 1917, and only Allen was still in service by the
time of the Pacific War. The "thousand-tonners" were much larger than
previous destroyers and were an attempt at a balanced design capable of
screening the battle line, attacking the enemy's battle line, or
scouting for the fleet. Destroyer officers felt that destroyers should
be used aggressively, dashing in to launch their torpedo salvoes, then
dashing back out, if any were still afloat and navigable at that point.
The Navy General Board believed that the battleship gun was the arbiter of
naval victory and that destroyers must be able to keep up with and
screen the larger ships. The scouting role reflected the unbalanced
composition of the U.S. Fleet throughout this period, which had a
powerful battle line and large numbers of destroyers, but neglected light cruiser construction.

The resulting design satisfied no one, but the
General Board insisted that future designs must continue to strike a
balance between offensive and defensive capability, and many features
of the "thousand-tonners" were duplicated in the Caldwell
class that formed the basis for the mass-production destroyers of the
First World War.

Allen was
present at Pearl Harbor on 7
December 1941 and continued operating in the Hawaii area, mostly as a training vessel, throughout the war.